


Tick Off the Seconds As They Pass

by Es_Aitch



Series: Twelfth Doctor One Shots  Series 9 [8]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen, Heaven Sent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5325809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Es_Aitch/pseuds/Es_Aitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>***SPOILERS FOR "Heaven Sent" and "Scherzo"***</p><p>So do we really think we saw all of the Doctor’s thoughts during "Heaven Sent"?  References to Big Finish Audio “Scherzo”.  First Person POV: Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tick Off the Seconds As They Pass

I find myself losing track of time.

Everyone thinks that any time the TARDIS is late that it has to do with my dodgy piloting skills. Well, sometimes they’re not half wrong. But it actually is possible for Time Lords to lose track of time. Especially if they are in a place where time feels like it should move properly, yet it doesn’t move as we expect.

Or if you find yourself in a place without time. That happened once before. Another body, another companion. Charley. She’s still around in the TARDIS’ memories, Clara. Like you. You never know, you might run into her…

On second thought, don’t do that. I shudder to think what it would be like if the two of you ever met. She met Romana. She was another friend. A fellow Time Lord. The two of them met and it didn’t go as well as I had hoped. So if the two of you met, well, it would probably make my life hell. Ironic considering…

_On the Chalkboard in his mind, he sees Charley’s early Twentieth Century script:_

_` Aren’t you going to tell her the story? We were best friends too, back then.` _

_The Doctor smirked. Charley had a way to always call him to task. What was it with companions whose names started with “C”?_

After the TARDIS and I had been infected with Anti-Time, we ended up in the universe of anti-time. A universe literally without any sense of time at all. Do you know what that’s like for a Time Lord? For us, time doesn't merely pass. We can see it, taste it. In that place, it was all gone. It was as if I’d been blinded. There were no Time Lords there, because there was no Time to be Lord over. Everything was simply ‘now’. A moment happened, and then it was over, the next one rushing in and driving the other one away.

_On the Chalkboard in his mind, he saw Charley’s writing again:_

_` That’s how humans always experience time.` _

You said that before. But everything was temporary. By the time you recognise that you should pay attention to the moment – the moment was already passed, lost forever. I thought it was hell for me. But the TARDIS couldn’t even remain there. She was being eaten alive by the experience. Literally.

After Charley and I left the TARDIS, we found all of our senses were slowly being eroded away. But none of that is the point. Not right now. Because there was a trick I taught myself when I was there. Perhaps that’s why I thought of Charley just now. The TARDIS is still trying to save me, at least in my mind. If I walk at a reasonable pace, my hearts beat ten times a minute. If I am sitting, it can slow down to six times and if I run, as fast as sixty. The point is: I have an internal metronome.

If I move the count, from the beat of my hearts to the tapping of a finger, or a one-handed clap, then I will be able to track just how much time has passed.

As I count off the passing of time, I now realise how long I have been here. It’s been at least thirty-eight hours, maybe slightly more. And I recognise another parallel to that universe of Anti-Time. Something is keeping me alive here. Oh you would think I would have picked up on that long ago, since it’s clear they want confessions from me. But sometimes when it comes to torture, you deny the prisoner food and drink. It causes mental deficiencies when you do that. Breaks a person down.

But here I am fed. I am granted the chance to time my activities. To figure things out. Eighty-two minutes to sleep.   Well, seventy-five, just to be safe. But still, more than enough time for me. Even sofas or a bed to slumber on, depending on my mood. And of course, the fact that all the rooms reset themselves, so I never have to worry about cleaning up after myself.

* * *

It always comes down to me. And I have to be careful not to think about it too hard. Because if I do, I think about the billions of times I have done this. The billions of times I have gone through this process and reached this very point, where I start to remember. And questions surface when I do that.

If I’m not careful, I start to wonder what it was like. That first time. For the first me… what was it like for him? When I came out of the water, did I have clothes to put on? If so, where did they come from? How did they get here? Or did I run around naked for the next several days? Wouldn’t have mattered if I did, since that’s nothing I’ve ever worried about hiding anyway. Not that there was anyone to hide anything from…

What was it like for him? Back nearly two billion years ago, when he stepped out of the transport chamber, and discovered all of these things for the first time. Did he have any doubts? Did he beg to be allowed to lose just this once? Or did that begging only come from thousands upon thousands of years of going through this process?

How did he decide to try to punch through the Azbantium? If he didn’t have the doubt I am now experiencing, was that simply his way of giving up? Did he decide to give in to the Veil and then change his mind as he lay there dying slowly?

If I’ve killed myself and brought myself back billions upon billions of times, am I the same Time Lord as when I arrived? Or has the process turned me into some form of Hybrid?

These are the questions and doubts that I face as I, yet again, make my way back to the chamber. But I cannot give in to them. Because setting the questions aside, there is only one truth that remains:  That first me dared to punch the Azbantium. He envisioned himself as that bird. The bird that chiselled down an entire mountain made of diamond. And if _he_ could do it. So can I.

**I am the Doctor. I'm coming to find you.  And I will never, ever stop!**


End file.
